Devil snarls but slinks back into the shadows.
The charioteer fights to pull the vehicle to stop in time.
The mom stands watching with wide, tear-filled eyes.
“Mercy, Void Vampire,” she pleads.
Lanlin ignores her.
My heart is in my mouth.
Slowly, Lanlin holds out his hand. “Is this for me, little fledgling?”
The vampire sticks her thumb in her mouth, before roughly holding out the closed-up lotus to Lanlin.
“Thank you, my dear.” Lanlin takes the flower, as if his army, mates, and entire crowd are not watching him. The fledgling gives a fanged grin. “Do you like tricks?”
She nods.
When Lanlin smiles, it is the first genuine smile of his that I have seen.
I thought that he was beautiful before.
Smiling like this, he is the most mesmerizing person I have seen. And I currently have my arms around the most stunning fae in the realms.
Lanlin leans forward, before pretending to catch a moth from behind the fledgling’s ear, which then flutters up into the sky and toward the moon.
She laughs and claps.
“Now,” Lanlin says more sternly as he stands, still holding onto the lotus like it’s the most precious gift he has ever received, “be a good little fledgling and run back to your mother.”
The fledgling throws herself at Lanlin, hugging his leg.
Lanlin flinches. His smile becomes strained.
At last, the fledgling toddles back toward her mom, who snatches her up, hugging her and weeping.
“This is the monstrous Shadow Vampire King…?” I whisper. “The most feared assassin in the realms? The person Aurelius hates the most?”
“You saw what he did in Bael,” Daire replies, harshly. “Even a monster can do party tricks for their own kids. It’s how they treat other kingdoms’ kids that matters.”
Unexpectedly, both twin demonic lions throw back their heads and bellow.
“Fuck.” Daire lurches forward, clutching onto Shadow’s mane to stop us from being thrown off.
Lanlin twirls around, staring up at the night sky in alarm.
Then he howls, “Ambush!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
White Lotus Village, Blood Kingdom
Lanlin
“Circle my blood mates,”I shout above the sudden wingbeats in the starlit sky, “protect them from the attack.”
Attack.
